Hey now, this upstanding Judo instructor wasn't stealing his students money, he was stealing from the students of a music program. To insinuate he stole his student's money is just baseless. He wasn't teaching ke?po.

If he was just stealing from "THOSE" students, then what the hell is the big fuss?

A Murrieta man suspected of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Vista Murrieta High School Golden Alliance Band Boosters, and then cooking the books to cover the alleged embezzlement, pleaded not guilty to felony charges Wednesday.

Just keeping it updated, since there was such a hypocritical response of "OMG he is a good guy" over on the other website. I want to keep up and see what happens.

Sorry for the necro but I just found out about Paul Nogaki. I'm stunned to see he's traded in his "red & white" for an "orange & white". I was not part of the Judo Forum when this all went down so I didn't see the threads over there but after reading the posts on this thread I'm damn near speechless. I post on the *new* Judo Forum and I've noticed that he wasn't posting there at all. That's what prompted me to search on "Paul Nogaki" to see if something terrible (like death) happened to him. I didn't expect to see an arrest record. I am disappointed but quite frankly not surprised to read people defending him. It can be very hard for people to have personal relationships and friendships with someone to reconcile how or why they did it. I hope he is found not guilty but if he is guilty I hope the judge throws the book at him. There is zero tolerance in my book for defrauding high school students for one's sordid gain.

Paul Takuya Nogaki, 55, of Murrieta, pleaded guilty June 28 in an agreement with prosecutors to grand theft and falsifying records, court records show. He was sentenced to 120 days to be served in a work release program, five years’ probation and ordered to pay restitution and fines.

John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney’s office, said prosecutors agreed to the plea primarily because Nogaki initially made a restitution payment of about $48,000 and agreed to pay $20,000 per year while on probation.